


Some Girls Won't Dance To The Beat Of The Track

by thesleepingsatellite



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Ballet, Dancing, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-18 20:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5941486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesleepingsatellite/pseuds/thesleepingsatellite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gina attempts to add ballet to her dance routines. Against her better judgement, Rosa offers to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Girls Won't Dance To The Beat Of The Track

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fleurting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurting/gifts).



"God damn it!" 

Rosa paused in her tracks, her head whipping around toward the door to the evidence room. Gina was in there, and she sounded royally pissed off. Rosa raised her eyebrow, and considered continuing on her way before changing direction mid-step to peek through the doorway into the dimly lit room. Her coworkers did all sorts of strange shit in there, and it was usually worthwhile to figure out if any of them were up to anything freaky. She could always use more material when it came to mocking her friends. 

Few of her coworkers were immune to her mockery. Captain Holt was, of course, unflappable, not that she'd stoop to the level of mocking the man - he was one of the few people she felt was deserving of her admiration. Mockery seemed to roll off Hitchcock and Scully's backs like water off the back of a set of particularly obtuse ducks. As for Gina, Gina reveled in her idiosyncrasies and quirks, and had an uncanny ability to volley sardonic quips right back at Rosa. Rosa constantly found herself re-evaluating her opinion of Gina, and against her better judgement she had actually started to like her.

Still, Rosa kept trying to find a way to get under Gina's skin. Something about Gina made her want to keep trying to unnerve her, and after years of working together, it had become a challenge for Rosa to do so.

She pushed the door open, and came to a stop in the doorway, her jaw dropped open in shock. Gina stood in the middle of the room, clad in a black leotard and a ridiculous pink leopard-print tutu. Upon her feet were a pair brand-new pointe shoes. 

"What are you doing." Rosa said, her voice flat. She watched as Gina relaxed her body, lowering her arms from above her head to rest at her sides.

"Well, I thought I would stretch my wings, you know? Learn to fly," she said, spinning on the ball of one foot, her arms whirling through the air. "Dance on the tips of my toes," she said, swinging her hands dangerously close to Rosa as she jumped through the air in a passable jeté.

Rosa nodded, allowing herself to study Gina's brand-new shoes. "How are those shoes working out for you?"

Gina looked at her feet and flexed her toes in the shoes. "Okay, I guess. I keep trying to walk on the tips of my toes, but it's just so hard, you know?"

"Yeah I do," Rosa said, watching as Gina pirouetted across the room, her fluffy tutu flaring out around her. One of the shoes shifted on her feet, threatening to unseat itself.

"God damn it," Gina said, reaching to adjust the shoe. "It keeps doing that."

"That's because it isn't on your foot right." Rosa paused, and looked at Gina as she fiddled with the shoes. There was no way that Gina would be able to dance en pointe without help, and chances were that she'd hurt herself trying. "Okay, here's the thing," Rosa continued. "I'll help you. Be here tomorrow, same time, same place. Bring the shoes, a knife, and some good quality wide ribbon, and a needle and thread to sew that shit on with."

Gina looked at her with suspicion. "Why do I need all that? I mean, the ribbons, I get." She stretched out a long leg, pointing her toe. "I mean, I was kind of surprised that these things didn't come with them. But a knife?"

Rosa narrowed her eyes at Gina. "Just do it."

"Sure, sure," Gina said, holding her hands up as if to placate Rosa. "You really gonna help me?"

"Yeah," Rosa nodded, tamping down the voice of reason in her head that said helping Gina was a recipe for disaster. "Just don't tell anyone, okay? If I hear you breathed a word to anyone, don't expect to see me here tomorrow." 

Gina mimed zipping her lips. "My lips are sealed tighter the lock on the Captain's secret vault." She said. 

Rosa raised an eyebrow at her and walked to the door. "Secret, huh? Anyway, I gotta go catch a drug dealer now. Later."

\---

The next day, Rosa returned to the evidence room at the appointed time, to find Gina whirling around the room in her pointe shoes. She watched as Gina came to a stop, braced her arm on the desk and attempted to balance on the toe box of one shoe. Gina could come to demi-pointe and her legs looked strong. Rosa thought it might be possible for Gina to attain pointe if she had proper instruction.

"You're going to need a lot more practice than that to dance en pointe," Rosa said as she walked into the room. "It takes dancers years of training before they start dancing en pointe."

"Well, I'm not just any dancer," Gina said. She let go of the table, and as she whirled around, Rosa saw shoe slipping out of alignment on her foot.

"No," Rosa said, with a low laugh. "You're certainly not. Now, get those things off your feet and let's fix them up so that you can at least wear them properly. Did you bring the stuff?"

"Sure did!" Gina gestured to the array of items on the desk which included pink ribbons, a sewing kit, glue and a dangerous looking knife that Rosa was sure came from one of the evidence lockers. Rosa nodded. It suited her purposes. 

They sat at the desk and Rosa held out her hand for the shoes. 

"So, here's the thing about pointe shoes. To dance in them comfortably, you have to fucking destroy them first."

Rosa grinned when Gina's draw dropped. She'd shocked Gina, and she hadn't thought that was possible. 

"But," Gina said, her voice taking on a petulant tone. "I spent a lot of money on these!"

"And they won't be any good to you in the state that they're in, okay?" She wrestled the shoes from Gina's tight grasp. "I promise, you'll love how they feel on your feet when I'm done."

Rosa took the knife in her hand and examined the curvature of the blade. "Nice one," she said with a grin as she looked from the ornate handle to meet Gina's eyes. "Is this the one from the Kozlowski mugging last week?"

"Yeah," Gina sighed. "It was so pretty, it's like it was calling me."

Rosa held up a shoe so that Gina could see its sole, and brought the tip of the knife to the smooth leather. "You're probably finding that these are a bit slippy, right?"

Gina nodded.

"Here's how you fix that," Rosa said. Ignoring Gina's pained whimper, she drew the knife over the smooth leather. "If you want to have any traction at all in these babies, you need to score the bottom."

"Oh," Gina piped up. "Like how when I get a new pair of heels and I sometimes scuff the bottoms on cement before wearing them out for a night."

"Yeah, just like that," Rosa said. She'd finished scoring the sole in one direction, and started scoring the leather in the other, creating a crisscross pattern before handing the knife to Gina. "Here, you do the other one."

Gina accepted the knife from her, and then carefully began to score the bottom of the other shoe. When she finished scoring it in one direction, she looked up at Rosa, wide eyed and hopeful. 

"Good," Rosa nodded, for once allowing a genuine smile to creep across her face. Gina grinned back at her and returned to her work. "Did you know," Rosa continued, "That there's a ballerina who can dance an entire routine in pointe shoes fitted with knives on the bottom?"

"Oh yeah? That's badass."

"Yeah. Life goals, Gina. Life goals." 

Gina put the knife on the desk and handed Rosa the shoe. Rosa ran her fingers over the scored sole. "Perfect. Now you won't be slipping around as though you were on skates. Next," she allowed a grin to creep over her features. "We're going to crush them."

Gina wrinkled her nose. "What?"

"Yeah, we still gotta crush the toe box, fix the shank of the shoes so they are custom fit to your feet, and then get you started sewing the ribbons on these bad boys."

"Few," Gina said, wiping a hand across her brow. "I had no idea toe shoes would be so much work."

"Yeah, well. If you do it enough times it becomes routine. Now, put those shoes on the floor and step on them."

\---

Rosa entered the evidence room a day later to find Gina using a shelf as a makeshift barre. She was practicing rising to demi-pointe as Rosa had shown her, and she was wearing her pointe shoes, which were now broken in the way a ballet dancer’s should be and secured to her feet with satin ribbons.

"That's good," Rosa said, glad that Gina was taking her suggestion to practice demi-pointe first. During the past few days, Rosa had given serious thought to whether it was a good idea to help Gina learn to come to pointe when she hadn't mastered basic ballet skills yet. Typically, it took a dancer years of work to strengthen the feet, legs, back and ankles before she could attempt dancing en point. Rosa wondered if it was irresponsible of her to keep helping Gina figure out how to balance on the tips of her toes, but she figured that one of two things would happen. First, and most likely, Gina would become tired of the rigor required to even prepare to dance on pointe and stick to her own special brand of modern dance; second, if Gina wanted to continue, well, Rosa knew a real dance instructor she could refer her to for instruction.

For now, Rosa was having fun indulging her love of dance, a passion she usually sublimated into activities such as boxing or taekwondo. It turned out that Gina's company wasn't terrible either. She was a good student, and was eager to please. More than that, Rosa found herself looking forward to these clandestine daily meetings in the evidence room. She hated to admit it, but she liked spending time with Gina, who was silly in a way that Rosa wasn't, and who moved surprisingly well as she worked her way through her dance routines. 

If Rosa was truthful with herself, she thought she might be developing feelings for Gina, which, _ugh_. _Feelings_.

Rosa flung her bag on the desk.

"What you got there?" Gina said, whirling around to brace her arms against the desk, one leg flung up behind her. 

Rosa reached into the bag and drew out a pair of battered black pointe shoes that had seen better days. "Shoes." She said, tearing her eyes away from Gina as she yanked her motorcycle boots off her feet.

"You know, I'm starting to feel that there's something you're not telling me about your past, Rosa," Gina said, leaning against the desk.

"What makes you say that?" Rosa said with a smirk. She sat and pulled the pointe shoes onto her feet. She started winding the worn, black ribbons around her ankles and looked up at Gina with a raised eyebrow.

"How come you never told me before that you're a dancer?"

"First, I'm a cop, not a dancer. Second, it's not exactly something I advertise. And third, I was kind of worried that this," she gestured to the space between them, "would happen." 

"Admit it, though," Gina wheedled. "You love spending time with me here, teaching me how to hack apart my shoes with knives and seal the edges of ribbons with a lighter."

"Yeah, I kind of do," she said, looking up at Gina was a grin. She was glad that Gina didn't know the half of it. Rosa would never hear the end of it if she did.

"So where do you want me?" 

Rosa surprised the urge to make an inappropriate comment and looked around before gesturing to the shelving unit. "Since I can't convince Captain Holt to spring for a barre, the shelf will have to do. Now come on. Let's dance."

They stood facing each other, each with one hand on the shelf. "Now come to first position," Rosa said.

Gina's eyebrows came together and tilted her head to the side. "Is that like first base for ballet dancers? Because Rosa, honey," she said, her voice taking on a definite purr. "I can definitely get down with that."

 _Oh,_ Rosa though, as she realized the attraction she felt to Gina might not be as one sided as she had thought. _Oh_. Still, Rosa had learned it was better to be safe than sorry when it came to romantic feelings, especially if those feelings were toward a colleague.

"If only it was," Rosa said, filing away Gina's statement about first base for later consideration. "Heels together, toes pointed out. Like this." She demonstrated, moving to first position.

Gina adjusted her stance and looked up at Rosa for approval. 

"Good," Rosa said. "Now, let's practice relevé a few times. Engage your core and slowly roll your feet all the way up so you're standing high on the balls of your feet."

Rosa showed her the movement once, and the next time she moved to demi-pointe Gina moved with her, synchronizing her movements to Rosa's. As they rose and fell in tandem, Rosa looked at Gina and smiled when she caught her eye. Gina grinned back, her smile wide and bright.

"I'm good, right?" Gina drawled.

Rosa nodded, raising one arm above her head as she came to demi-pointe. "You're okay."

Gina snorted. "Come on, I'm better than okay and you know it. Let's use these toe shoes like they're meant to be used."

"You sure you're ready?" 

"I can take anything you throw at me, Detective," Gina replied, jutting her chin out.

"We'll see about that," Rosa said, with a grin. 

Gina leaned closer Rosa, and for a moment, Rosa thought Gina would kiss her. "Try me," Gina said, her voice breathy, before moving back to stand tall and straight, one hand grasping the shelf.

Rosa bit her lip and looked at her, taking in Gina's now rapt and attentive expression. For all intents and purposes, Gina looked every inch the perfect ballet student. "Okay, next time you roll upwards, move smoothly through relevé all the way up to the points of your shoes. Now watch my feet while I do it." Rosa steeled herself and rose to the points of her shoes in one fluid motion. She stood tall over Gina, who looked up at her with an expression of admiration. 

"That's amazing," Gina said, watching was Rosa moved from pointe to first position and then back again. "I want to try."

Rosa dropped back to the floor, and nodded. "Engage your abs and come to demi-pointe, and then roll slowly upwards until you're on your toes," she said. 

Gina rose to demi-pointe, and then looked up at Rosa. "I'm kind of scared."

Rosa grinned. "You should be. Coming to pointe is one of the hardest things you'll ever do, Gina. A lot of people think dance is for the gentle, delicate, soft people, but what they don't know is that you need to be made of steel to dance ballet. And you, Gina, you are made of steel. You can do this."

Gina closed her eyes. "I am made of steel," she uttered, and rolled upward in a controlled, gradual motion to stand balanced on the points of her shoes. She released the breath she had been holding, and then opened her eyes wide. "I did it!" She squealed, swaying on her toes.

"You sure did," Rosa said, before springing up from first position to pointe. They grinned at each other, and Gina giggled before lowering herself to stand with both feet firm against the floor once more.

"That really hurt, though," Gina said, moving into demi-pointe again.

"You get used to it," Rosa said with a shrug. "We can practice some more if you want."

Gina nodded. "I'd like that. This was nice. We haven't really spent that much time together, just you and me. You're more fun than I thought you'd be."

"I can be a lot of fun," Rosa said with a smirk. "Especially if getting to first base is still on the table."

Gina bit her lip and Rosa felt a thrill shoot through her system when Gina's gaze shifted to Rosa's for a split second before meeting Rosa's eyes once more. "Well, Detective Diaz, aren't you just full of surprises these days?"

Gina rose to the tips of her toes and leaned forward to kiss Rosa. Rosa inhaled sharply through her nose as Gina's lips moved softly against hers. Then, she lifted a hand to Gina's face, cupping Gina's cheek as she as she returned the kiss. Gina sighed, and wrapped her hand around Rosa's neck, her fingers scraping against Rosa's scalp before stroking through her thick hair.

When they parted, Gina's eyes were alight. "When it comes to dancing, I got moves you haven't even seen yet. How about after work, we move practice to some place more private, like my apartment?"

"You're on," Rosa replied, leaning in to steal another kiss from Gina's lips. "Maybe we can explore some more positions," Rosa said with a smirk. "Ballet positions, strictly speaking."

Gina nodded, "Of course," she said, crowding Gina up against the wall. "Ballet, only ballet," she said with a sigh as she kissed Rosa once more.

**Author's Note:**

> The story about a ballerina dancing on pointe shoes fitted with knives is real. The video of Amelie Segarra on knife shoes can be found [here](https://vimeo.com/66721776).
> 
> Disclaimer: I am not a ballet dancer, and everything I know about ballet, breaking in shoes and pointe work comes from ballet websites and videos. Please don't attempt these techniques at home, as coming to pointe safely takes a heck of a lot more work and preparation than described here. ;)


End file.
